Helvete, sort of
. . .
Melancology, the second Black Metal Theory Symposium, will take place at The Fighting Cocks, a bar/club in Kingston, UK, on January 13, 2011.
Details are here. Registration info is here. Ticket prices start at a steep £20, in contrast to the $10 fee for the first symposium last year in Brooklyn. The night will conclude with a performance by Abgott.
Here are titles of papers to be presented at the symposium:
Introduction to Melancology
Metal’s Formless Presence in Contemporary Art
Beyond Melancology: Hüzüncology and the Thymotic
Towards the Re-Occultation of Black Blood
Suddenly, life lost new meaning: Melancology as another new age metaphor for transcendental encounters
To the mountains or rocking against melancholy: The implications of black metal’s geophilosophy
A Machine for Breaking Gods: Unity, Nature and Ritual in US Black Metal
Wormsign
Black Sun-Blank Metal Perversion
Irreversible Sludge: Troubled Energetics, Eco-purification and Self-Inhumanization
Going to Hell in Northern Deserts
The hot wet breath of extinction
Visions of Kali: Attack Sustain Release (Video installation)
Blackening the Green
“Melancology” is a word invented for this occasion, meant to cross “black” with “ecology”. Judging from the paper titles, the environment is indeed a salient concern. To this, I might add a hypothetical title: “Killing trees about killing trees: The commodification of paper and petroleum products in support of anti-commodification”. I jest, slightly.
. . .
Click to enlarge
. . .
When I wrote about the first symposium, I was both curious (as to why it even existed) and skeptical (as to why it should even exist). I wasn’t alone in these sentiments. Aquarius Records, in reviewing Hideous Gnosis
The real question regarding Hideous Gnosis is whether black metal does indeed have some sort of lofty academic underpinnings, or is this academic study of the genre simply another example of hipsters trying to legitimize something that appears to be, at its core, raw and underground and visceral and personal and pretty much diametrically opposed to any idea of scholarly study or academic examination?
New York Times writer Ben Ratliff, in an even-handed and astute article, quoted a Decibel forum member as saying that black metal “has nothing to do with being intellectual and everything to do with not wanting to try and break every little thing apart”.
Symposium presenter Scott Wilson pushed back hard against anti-intellectualism:
This fear of the academic is completely imaginary and simply (re)produced in order to bolster the journalist’s authority and passion for ignorance: passion for the ignorance of the artist, for the incomprehensibility of the work, and the ineffable authenticity of his experience about which she wishes to know nothing except that she experiences it. But that’s cool, it’s important to be passionate about stuff.
It’s understandable to feel angst when people who don’t talk like you do start talking about your passion.
But there are many ways to skin a cat. Who’s to say which is most valid? If you consider yourself in black metal’s “in group”, there are ample blogspots and forums for you. If you’re ambivalent but inquisitive, make yourself at home here. If you’re deaf, you can experience black metal’s visual aesthetic through the brilliant The Palpable Obscure. If you’re blind, just turn it up. And if you’re an academic with an over-large vocabulary, get thee to The Fighting Cocks. You will meet like minds and hopefully hear some good music. Isn’t that the whole point?
. . .
I don’t fear the academic. The pedantic is something entirely different.
These type of conferences would study metal music the way entomologists study insects: render something vibrant and fascinating utterly lifeless. Then pin it on a mounting board and stare while using pompous language.
Judging from the workshop titles academics continue to have a passing grasp at best on English. “Beyond Melancology: Hüzüncology and the Thymotic” …there’s a mouthful. No wonder they are holding it at a bar.
One of my favorite quotes regarding this sort of thing came from Vice Magazine.
Writing about Hunter Hunt-Hendrix’s “Transcendental Black Metal”, they wrote that it “belongs to a rich, collegiate tradition of taking a movement or piece of art that you enjoy and writing about it in a way that suggests you take no enjoyment from it whatsoever.”
Now I’m not really a huge fan of Vice, but when they wrote this, they got something right.
The article can be found here: http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/2010/03/08/not-fit-to-print-transcendental-metal/
though i don’t advocate violence i would find it hilarious if some “tru” kvlt kids showed up and just burned the place down while stabbing everyone in attendance except the symposium orator. That’s black metal, not the damn chords or face paint. Unless you consider KISS black metal. (end of dissection of genre/no pun intended).
America has had a strand of strong anti-intellectualism for a long time (always might be the better word) and it permeates into almost every cultural pore and crevice. So no surprise about reactions to things like this.
I think this ties perfectly into the “whither Black Metal” discussion, as academic attention seems to imply that there is still some life left in the old horse Black Metal.
And TheWolf nailed it: denigrating this as using “pompous language” smacks of anti-intellectualism that to me conjures images of Sarah Palin. And don’t all areas of special interest use words that might seem incomprehensible, or even outright ludicrous, to outsiders? Black Metal certainly seems no exception to this rule.
Most of the time, when I read comments on this page, I put the written words into news caster voices and then add “over to you whoeverthenextcommentris.” It’s fun. Don’t quit being so rigid. But, you guys do make good points most of the time, and are more intelligent than the commenters of other contemporary metal blogs. Over to you…
thx so much for articul
evar1 noes black metul is about teh fact im badass cos i sat in schol as tenager not lissenin nad jus letin my moast adulescint fantasccs run wild. blaeck metul is acessoray 4 dis expeeryunce nad it hsa surved me wel as i rode valiantly in2 mi 20’s werkin as a burger chef spendin spaer tiem psotin blog communtes. bak in schouwl i alweys knew teahcar wuz unkewl nad lief was onli abuot enjoyin nad rockin out nad being kewl. wen peepul use big woards i git frihgntened cuz its liek “wtf dude is evar1 gonna b talkin liek dat? i dunt wanta have 2 lurne!”. den i cal dem hipstars cuz any1 who doez anyhting is jus tryning 2 b hipstar. maeks mi threatned liek “wut is dis sasppoused 2 b nu trend? f dat i wil cal it hipstar so i luk liek i am not fallowning trends”. srs wtf is this liek peepul riteing thnings nad liek its supsosed 2 b metul wut? it maeks mi so angar wen peepul use big thinky wordz nad hav big thinky brainzes. dunt they know i NEEDE metul 2 justify mi supeeryority/kewlness wen compurred 2 those smart nerds wit der big thinky brainez lol those guyz r fagz they cant do solo liek maiden lol. if u wnat 2 c reele metul it can be inferred frum mi coments wer i disparage this as not bein reele metul. if u cnat tel bi noaw how kewl i am nad u dunt alreeday put down buk nad cum rok out wit mi nad drink beer den i sozzy 2 say u r fagz nad not kewl or metul not evan liek slitely metul lol.
It smells of superiority and cheap beer. Is that you Stewie?
I don’t think it’s anti-intellectualism that makes people suspicious of these symposia. In general, I think it’s pretty off the mark to say that black metal is anti-intellectual: many of its practitioners seem to have a clear interest in philosophy, religion, folklore and so forth. Granted, nobody’s referencing Foucault, but Mayhem’s “Grand Declaration of War” lifts several pages from Nietzsche. And Emperor called their third album “Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk”; you do not learn the word ‘welkin’ (especially not in Norway) without thumbing a thesaurus. I think the worry about this conference and the last one is more a fear of catching the stink of “cultural theory” bullshit. I mean, just going by the paper titles, this sounds like the Sokal Hoax 2.0. The problem’s not that they’re trying to approach black metal in a reflective way, but that they’re doing so in a fashion that looks more like a parody of serious intellectual inquiry.
Several good points made here, particularly Vesuvium’s last sentence and Robert’s quote pull from Vice. I personally don’t think there is any fault or problem with these events, but I also agree with Cosmo that there is little need.
(the only possible need could be the ‘elevation’ of message board discussions into something more ‘legitimate,’ but perhaps it is time to grasp thy laptop with both hands and embrace that fact that perhaps a message boards is simply where your message lives)
Black metal has spiraled out and collapsed. In it’s wake some great music has been made, and some terrible music has been made. More often than not the great music claims not to be black metal while the terrible claims to be so. The more important item is the ideas and attitude that first spawned black metal. Such power cannot lay dormant, but will again surface either in corpse paint or overalls.
Perhaps that gentlemen at The Fighting Cocks will look back on this thread and find some insight they could have chimed in on, here, with those who are actually interested.
Maybe next year they’ll charge 100$ per entry but give the audience a chance to hear a christian black metal band, that’s always fun. Even dissect a corpse of some musician! Wouldn’t that be ritualistic?
Seriously, this seems completetely unecessary and reeks of nerdyness. And is totally “un-metal”, much less black metal.
Since when the metal universe became art school?
I ususally enjoy the writing here but; “The brilliant Palpable Obscure”. Seriously? How so?
Yeah Wolf, great point. America definitely hasn’t been at the forefront of almost every scientific and technological breakthrough in the last 200 years. France is so much more intellectual, what with riots in the streets over raising retirement to 62. Or perhaps Iran is the progressive, intellectual nation you were thinking of?
Miasma magazine published an interview addressing this question.
Original English text is available here.
More here.
I’m actually an academic myself–and of the worst sort, as I work in the humanities. While I’ve read articles and attended presentations that make interesting use of critical theory, I’ve also had to endure more than my share of impenetrable gobbledygook. And yet I’d say more or less the exact same thing about black metal lyrics: some are smart and provocative (Ludicra), some are pedantic and deliberately obscure (Absu), and some are absolute nonsense that the lyric-writers themselves likely don’t understand (I’ll be nice and not cite any specific examples, but such are legion). If there were ever a genre of music that was made for critical theory, it’s black metal.
Also, kep metul dumBS’s post is as funny as internet smartassery gets.
@pseudo — good point as usual. “Beyond Melancology: Hüzüncology and the Thymotic” sounds like it could also be an album from a bad black metal band. Plenty of gobbledygook outside the ivory tower as well.
I dont really listen to black metal, it was never really my cup of tea.
bands always seem to mimick mayhem or burzum, and the sound never really gained anything, bands that i do listen to that are somewhat “black metal” are the likes of tombs or wolves in the throne room.
what i do notice about this whole scene is that its kinda like a bunch of (white) people who are aliented by whats going on around them (pop culture today or during the nineties was or is driven by black people).
this can be proven by all the pagan, celtic, or anglosaxon mumbo jumbo that gets thrown around in this arena, why do caucasion male or females gravitate towards this? maybe its nationalistic pride, something that they feel apart of or getting back to thier roots.
in regards to this issue i think Vesuvium had it right by saying that it seems to be a “parody of intelluctual inquiry”, guys just having fun with the whole scene that seems to take itself way too seriously.
these days one can not escape the whole black metal discussion, like what is true black metal and what is not ie. is the the new burzum album true black metal? no, true black metal only existed “pre prison time serving varg”.
maybe ten years from now all the kids will be staging thier black metal parties, a throw back to all the ghetto parties young caucasions enjoy these days.
I would like someone to sit in the last row, laughing out loud and heckling the shit out of the presenters.
I have to agree with those who already pointed out the pendantic versus intellectual question as related to this symposium. While I would be really excited to hear a speech on ritual in Black Metal, common imagery, fixation with the right wing/facism, or the implications of pagan/deification of nature on Black Metal as an artform, I am less curious about the subjects above, which seem to be something out of a post-modern parody of criticism.
First off, I appreciate the mention. It is praise I probably don’t deserve.I’m flattered.
Secondly, suspicion of the academic by metalheads, in my view, can be understood from the counterpoint of academia’s own suspicion of metalheads. On the whole, the two groups have head a “I-don’t-like-you-and-you-don’t-like-me-but-it’s-okay” attitude towards one another, where one is not intimidated by the other because of their seemingly different aims. Yet, when the discourse (and specifically the language) of academia begins to be applied in discussions about metal, boundaries are traversed, and people get defensive.
What do I know…I’m a medievalist.
I’m not against this in principle, and I like the idea of putting serious thought into metal, but writing about metal needs to make me want to listen to it and get excited about it. The titles of these papers aren’t doing it for me.
The one about black metal’s geophilosophy sounds awesome!
There’s a great quote from season 4 of “The Wire” where Bunny Colvin laughs at his partner/academic’s suggestion that their classroom program will ultimately, if not continued, be used for further study. Bunny, shaking his head and laughing at its absurdity, says, “They’re gonna study your study?” It’s sort of the same here–as a philosophy major in college, I had plenty of practice reading long winded and cryptically dense material which oftentimes seemed merely to exist for other academics to peruse (and it nearly ruined my reading-for-enjoyment’s-sake too). This symposium seems like a opportunity for like minded people to read each other’s like minded papers and well, be like minded. I’m not against that, in fact I would be interested in going if it weren’t so expensive and…in another country. I enjoy in depth examinations of things, and metal is one of them–however, given the titles of the papers themselves…I don’t know, and they would have to at least have a fresh look into it. Metal music’s not terribly deep, not as it used to be, and I learned a great deal of history from my Maiden records when I was 12–but BM doesn’t seem all that intellectually stimulating, and in fact is quite rigid, so the fact that its all about BM doesn’t interest me, plus I’ve really taken a visceral dislike to it in recent years–it’s more like a hybrid KISS/Hardcore show–good for the kiddies/horror movie freaks. All that said, I appreciate the fact that this exists, and perhaps wish that it could be expanded beyond BM. Plus, you gotta have some sort of use for your frontal cortex beyond using it to smash beer cans on.
I’m with Jason and TheWolf. The knee jerk reaction that professional thinkers can’t possibly understand what “black metal” is all about is a rather ridiculously boneheaded assumption. Is not not possible that some of these academics actually grew up metalheads in the 90s and are now professors? The fact that any facet of metal is being seriously considered by the Ivory Tower is a good thing. We are finally being recognized for music and culture we’re passionate about.
Will they get it (and us, which is what I think the real complaint is about) right? Maybe. Is there any whole to really “get right” though? No. It’s all perspective.
O Helm, Helm, wherefore art thou Helm?
@Chase/Jason/Wolf –I would have no problem with a serious, interesting academic study of black metal music. This doesn’t sound like it’s it. I also don’t think it’s anti-intellectual to call someone out for using pompous language. Einstein’s most advanced theories could be explained well to a layman. Stephen Hawking writes about advanced physics in an accessible manner . Mark Twain is possibly the greatest American writer ever and would never pen something like: “Irreversible Sludge: Troubled Energetics, Eco-purification and Self-Inhumanization.” He’d pick the right words. Good ideas don’t require obfuscation (big word intended). The Gettysburg Address was 272 relatively plain words and changed American history and endures.
There is a place for academics.White scholars were largely responsible for rescuing blues music from total obscurity so of course there is value to solid research and study. My issue is one I’ve always had with academia, including the years I toiled away as an English and philosophy major. The conference presented sounds like a bunch of academics preening like peacocks hoping their painfully verbose analysis of a subculture will earn them tenure.
By the way, the venue for this symposium, The Fighting Cocks, would be an apt description of many an academic conference I’ve attended. To an outsider, the stakes may seem low and the distinctions insignificant, but you wouldn’t know it from the vigorous debate. That’s another way in which academia is like metal, actually.
I’m all for this! Sure, it sounds pretentious and pedantic — and it probably is — but the fact that a bunch of pointy-headed academics are taking cultural/critical interests in black metal can only be exciting. But, this comes from someone currently writing his MA thesis on Motley Crue and the crisis of masculinity.
Still, the aversion between academia and metal is long-standing, well-documented, and, ultimately, ridiculous. There’s nothing in academia that is diametrically opposed to metal, nor vice versa. As a widespread cultural text, black metal lends itself perfectly to cultural theory.
As an addendum to my earlier comments, I would like to point out that when I was getting into metal, which now seems so *long* ago, there weren’t many places besides mags to get any in depth music writing, especially metal. Now, it seems, there’s no shortage-shit, it’s almost overload–however, I appreciate it, and the work others put into it to give us a forum, like Cosmo’s here. Thats a huge plus.
@Wash Jones: I too was lamenting Helm’s disappearance, but a couple days ago on this site he popped up and I saw his blog, and it’s a good’un. It’s http://poetry-of-subculture.blogspot.com/. Check it out.
sum gude poeints maed sinec mi lsat psot.
liek “i cna dismis dis witout reedeing it”
or rahtre “im ‘fraide if i reede it i dunt unnarstande so i jsut cal it hipstar preetyenshus pampous”
so imparsed wit u gusy abileelity 2 knoaw sumthinfg is “un-metul” jsut liek u is pyschic. i wsih i cud hnag wit u nad drinek beer nad haev pmpous preeteenshus convaresatshiuns wer we denounec thnigs we cnat reede or unnarstand as pomupous preeteenshuyshs hiptars nred innylectkuales.
we nevar sey wat we cud consiadar 2 be kewl cuz we r 2 afraied 2 be sceene 2 liek anythigni cuz den we cud git cauhgt out liekin sumfithing unkewl. sumthin dat isnt troue metul. bset jsut 2 slag off hipstars nad keep it dums.
al gud ponints maed so far but u neede 2 b moar dumm.
metul isnt abouet thnikng wit ur braeinz.
u cna knoaw dis cuntferance is guna be un-metul coz u sen day eppysoed of da wire wer dey maek joek bout innylecktuales. lol innylecktualse dosent knoaw metul. dosent knoaw troo spirit of metul. if innerlecktuales got in2 metul den dey wud taek awey mi ego. i cud nut pretand 2 be expart in metul. i wud be shoawed up 4 ideeot dat i am. cnat hav dis. we shud kil dem wit r axes. bstu in2 cuntfeerunce nad kil dem wit sweords. den du mad solo. dat b trueo metul.
den we pruv who is metul nad who is jsut nerd. santan wil kil cops. we teak ovar pub, use it as furtrass. hoild out agisnet al UK cops nad den army. innafew monaths we taek ovar UK. frist blaeck metul state. we get baddass axes nad cropse paeinte. it b truoo metul. we kil al hipasters.
u nut downe 4 doin dis or at leesst maekin song abouet it den u nuyt baleck metual. sozzty 2 tel u but u jsut fag.
Fear academia? No. But do fear Scott Wilson’s shitty BM fanfic:
“The disembodied soul of Øysten Aarseth, exhaled in his last dying breath and born on the icy winter wind, howled through the window of an old house outside Oslo. Dead lay there, still dead, half of his head still pressed up against the wood panelling, his knife and shotgun by his side, the floor splattered with dried blood and brain matter. Suspended in time, Dead’s last exhaled breath picked off the remaining layers of blasted skull and scooped out the putrefying tissue to disclose another head made of gold. A metalhead.”
Already a lot of great comments here.
Gonna out myself as an academic too (social psychology), and just looking at the list of symposia, I see a couple that look like they have the potential to be interesting – the ones on geophilosophy and ritual, specifically – but I’ve always been a little suspicious of academic study of popular culture. There’s a difference, to me, between looking at how some aspect of popular culture is an expression of the time and place in which it occurs (on which level black metal seems like it’d be fertile as hell for study) and trying to impose theory on it as a way of giving it some perceived sense of credibility, as if being studied in an academic setting makes popular culture legitimate somehow. I’m reminded of the last act of Until The Light Takes Us, when Frost is cutting himself up as part of an art performance, while the attendees stand there taking it in. That’s pretty much what you don’t want – that removal, the ironic distancing, the “ah, hmmm, yes, fascinating…” because fuck that. Popular culture is a living, breathing thing.
From my discipline’s standpoint, I’d look at something like the church burnings in Norway and think about it as an example of symbolic conflict – while good Christians clutched their pearls and worried about the Horned One, I’d be all “or, you know, it could be because you came over here and imposed your own culture and values on them and some of them want their own shit back.” Even locating that struggle in terms of a Christian adversary keeps the dialogue on the Christian’s turf, and that’s as much a power issue as an actual occupying army in the streets would be.
Nice to see it’s in a bar, though. If you’re in academia and you aren’t trying to find reasons to do stuff related to work in a bar, you are Doing It Wrong.
Calling a pointless, masturbatory event a pointless, masturbatory event does not anti-intellectualism make. Intelligence in metal is a great thing, but to me there is a clear difference between earnestly seeking legitimate understanding of what it is about a certain genre that makes it so appealing to a person, and creating a theoretical framework for the genre based on empty phrases never before used in this context, made-up words, and revisionist statements on genre history. The former is true passion, the latter is a lonely load shot into one’s own hand.
How the hell is it a pointless masturbatory event?
It hasn’t happened yet.
And everything else you said is BS too.
The point of the thing is not to create a theoretical framework the genre, as if trying to set rules and regulations. Why would you even think that?
And how the fuck is being earnest about wanting to know why people like black metal anything other than fucking boring and redundant? Wait, I get it, it’s just about enjoyment right? Those intellectuals are taking it too seriously.
That fucking attitude is the entire reason I listen to black metal and read books. I want to avoid being an achingly self concious travesty in a perpetual state of self commodification like vice magazine wants me to be. I want to experience something BEYOND hedonism. I’m fucking sick of enjoyment and the tired and vacuous protestations of those who demand we NEVER THINK or go beyond their sad little heavily policed state of semi irreverent stupidity.
Keep the black, get rid of all the fucking metal. Let’s proudly “steal” and “ruin” their sad little crutch, take what’s worth salvaging and leave the rest to rot with them and their beer guts and commitment to their sad little hedonistic version of consensus reality. Wouldn’t want to be seen taking things too seriously! Everyone knows its only a pose and if you take it too serious you’re a hipster.
It’s pathetic to see the trolls scuttle bewilderedly out of the woodwork when they sense some vague threat to posing on the net as being the watchmen of keeping it real about metal. It’s always the same pathetic half arguments that pretend to be engaging with the symposium from a reasonable and intellectual standpoint. And of course it always ends with the obligatory crude insult to show you aren’t really some dry nerd and know how to keep it real as well as make a well reasoned high fallutin arguments.
Of course these people will never post any actual disagreements or points in regards to the subject matter of this symposium because they don’t actually have any. They just need to maintain the appearance of an expertise and fulfilling connection to music that is not there. You notice they can only conceive of this is terms of redundant subjective narcissism. Anti intellectual and pro “feeling” and “passion” and some never quite defined post modern personal melodrama bullshit. It’s hard to imagine these people aren’t trying to imitate bad actors in daytime sit coms giving us heartfelt soliloquies about using our hearts and not our heads. They first jump in with a snide and never remotely witty troll, then if pushed they assume the mock tone of reason, “ah it could have been good except for these pointless nitpicking and barely valid points I want to make against it.” Seems like in this thread quite a few are doing that without even feeling the need to pretend they know what they are talking about.
I read the whole of the transcript of the first Hideous Gnosis symposium one night. I sat in my garage at about 1am in the dark reclining and using the laptop remote to scroll down the pdf file and read the entire thing and it was perhaps the most memorable and enthralling experience I’ve had in years.
Or, more succinctly: Just because you don’t know what a word means doesn’t mean it’s made-up.
This is hilarious because it incarnates everything hilariously wrong with the psuedo-intellectual BM bullshit. What university is sponsoring this? Oh wait, its at a pub. Is this part of your thesis? Of course not; any serious student would be doing their REAL thesis, which takes all fucking day long to write for years. Even if it is part of your thesis, what self-respecting academic would present at a “symposium” held at a bar, not sponsored by any real academic establihsment, and attended by assfucks named ‘Huntley’?
Look, you dork. This symposium doesn’t get rid of the fact that you didn’t get into the grad school you wanted to go to. It doesn’t legitimize a style of music into “art”, which was made by Norweigan 17 year olds 20 years ago. This is an embarassment to academia. You can say ‘paradigm’ and ‘hegemony’ all you want, but that doesn’t cover up the fact that you aren’t a real scholar and you aren’t attending a real symposium.
OH WAIT THAT COULD BE A TOPIC FOR MY DISS ITS LIKE BLACK METAL IS PRETENDING TO BE REAL EVIL IN A WORLD FULL OF OTHER EVILS. Piss off.
Actually, this is precisely a real sym-posium.
Cliff Evens. “MELANCOLOGY” DOES NOT APPEAR IN ANY DICTIONARY EVER MADE.
James Aple, hahaha!
All kinds of hate up in here.
This is hilarious because it incarnates everything hilariously wrong with the psuedo-intellectual BM bullshit. What university is sponsoring this? Oh wait, its at a pub.
Dude, based on my experience, if we could hold all of our symposia at pubs, we would.
Is this part of your thesis? Of course not; any serious student would be doing their REAL thesis, which takes all fucking day long to write for years.
So academic study is limited to one of the big products, like a thesis or dissertation? That’s a fraction of what academic study is. That’s like saying something isn’t real music because it isn’t on somebody’s demo or debut album.
“MELANCOLOGY” DOES NOT APPEAR IN ANY DICTIONARY EVER MADE.
Neither does “kvlt” or “grimm.” What’s your point?
“Grimm” does appear in the OED as a Middle English spelling of “grim.” I haven’t used either word anyway, so what’s your point?
“Grimm” does appear in the OED as a Middle English spelling of “grim.” I haven’t used either word anyway, so what’s your point?
That a word’s etymology doesn’t necessarily impact its legitimacy as language?
Oh good grief…
Cliff Evans – thank you for your comments. Specifically:
“Or, more succinctly: Just because you don’t know what a word means doesn’t mean it’s made-up.”
I wouldnt attend this event, but that line sums up anti-university anti-intellectualism attitudes for me.
I appreciate the candor.
Aple: Go ride a fucking bike or something. You need to get out of the house. Sitting in a dark room scrolling a .pdf transcript of a symposium based on dudes in panda bear maekup was “the most memorable and enthralling experience” you’ve had in years? Hard to think of something more pathetic.
Just stop. Please.
GoatShark: must be crap to be so afraid of ridicule.
These symposia are tantamount to attempts to engage a wild animal in a dialogue regarding its motivations while it devours you. Completely useless.
Excellent. Who said this is not a sacrifice? Why do *you* expect utility?
“Woe to those who, to the very end, insist on regulating the movement that exceeds them with the narrow mind of the mechanic who changes a tire.”
I posit that what black metal theory threatens is not the truth of black metal, but the recalcitrant *consumerism* of those who claim it for themselves.
I am surprised that this has received the amount of negative comments. It is true that academic analysis/criticism may run the risk of exoticising it’s subject “the black metal artist as noble savage”( numerous examples of this exist in the visual art world ) couldnt we all be happy to move a little further away from “heavy metal parking lot” stereotype which is often applied to the average listener. If this symposium is sincere and UNIRONIC i am totally ok with it.
checking on this again after a couple of days and i’ve come to the conclusion that you can be so smart, you sound stupid. I think this entire board needs to get laid